Little Coloured Blocks
by Omnicat
Summary: It's all fun and games until the weird mercenary kid starts peeping over your shoulder and wants to have a go. Then it's war. Ten-year-old Middie and No-Name act their age ...sort of.


**Title:** Little Coloured Blocks

**Author:** Omnicat

**Unofficially Adapted From:** Masashi Ikeda & co's _Gundam Wing_, including side stories; in particular _Episode Zero_.

**Spoilers & Desirable Foreknowledge:** _Episode Zero_.

**Warnings:** Slight language.

**Characters & Pairings:** Middie and No-Name/Trowa.

**Summary:** It's all fun and games until the weird mercenary kid starts peeping over your shoulder and wants to have a go. Then it's war. Ten-year-old Middie and No-Name act their age ... sort of.

**Author's Note:** Enjoy!

**II-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-I-oOo-I-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-II**

**Little Coloured Blocks**

"What is that?" said an icy voice, making her jump and sending the game she'd been playing flying from her hands. It flopped against her chest on its cord as she fearfully shrank into herself, and began to emit increasingly obnoxious and ominous beeps. That was the only thing that happened: no claw in her neck, no choking and struggling followed. Eventually Middie gathered up the courage to look up.

It was No-Name.

Middie glared at him, grabbed her game, and checked the screen. Game over. She glared at No-Name again. She'd been playing to ease her nerves, which had been on end twenty-four/seven since she'd come to stay with No-Name's troop of mercenaries. Company was the last thing she wanted right now.

"Don't sneak up on me like that. If I were like you I would have shot you."

"But you're not. I can do whatever I want," No-Name said flatly, while looking at her flatly. Flat and unreadable and creepy, that's what No-Name was. Middie couldn't stand it.

"What is that?" he asked, still in that flat and creepy way. Why did he always have to keep reminding her that he really did shoot people when they crept up on him?

"A game," Middie snapped. "I thought you were illitteric, not blind."

"Illiterate."

"What?"

"It's i-li-te-rate. Not illitteric," No-Name said. When he was standing over her like that he looked all high-and-mighty, and Middie was even more annoyed. "And I'm not blind _or_ illiterate. You just keep the screen pointed at yourself all the time. Nobody can see it."

Resisting the urge to stick out her tongue at him - which was childish, she'd be eleven next year, and she wasn't a kid anymore either way - Middie pressed the game to her chest and stuck her nose in the air with a huff. No-Name didn't react in the slightest.

Pouting, she slumped back into her normal posture. "You wanted to know what _kind_ of game I'm playing?"

"Yes."

"Then why didn't you say so?"

"Why are you being so annoying?"

_Because I'm the spy and you're the creepy mercenary kid. We're not supposed to get along._ "Because you're annoying and I don't like you."

And that too. So there.

No-Name gave her another one of those flat, blank looks. Then he turned around and walked over to a crate, and sat down on it just like she had.

"Too bad," he said, looking at her. "I'm the only company you've got that isn't big and hairy."

And he kept looking at her for what felt to her like hours. Middie decided to ignore him and start another game. But he didn't go away, so she looked up and glared (no response), went on playing, looked up and stuck out her tongue (no response), went on playing.

There was no way she was going to calm down like this. In the end, after looking up for the thousandth time to see him still sitting there looking at her, Middie let out a longsuffering sigh. "It's Tetris."

"What's Tetris?"

"You don't know what Tetris is?"

"Would I be asking if I did?"

"How should I know? You're not exactly human, are you?"

"No, I'm a soldier. So I could shoot you if you don't answer me."

"You wouldn't."

"I would."

"You wouldn't."

"I would."

"Nu-uh. I'll tell the captain and he'll ground you."

"Ground me? What's that mean?"

Middie stared at him with slack-open mouth. "You've never been _grounded_ before? That's so unfair. My dad's always - " She caught herself just in time. "- always used to ground me."

"What, plant you in the ground like a tree?" No-Name said.

A sigh escaped Middie. It was aggravating, but also pitiful, in a way. No-Name just didn't have a clue. Maybe she should take pity on him and try to civilize him a bit.

God knew she was going to have a lot to make up for in the good deeds department.

"Look," she said, and motioned him to sit beside her so she could show him the screen. "Tetris is where little coloured blocks in different shapes come down from the top of the screen and you have to move them so they line up. Whenever a line is full, it disappears, and you've gotta keep the lines disappearing or else the screen will fill up with them and you'll lose the game."

He looked closely at the screen as she explained and demonstrated at the same time, and nodded once she was done talking and jerked the game back, furiously smashing buttons to keep from losing.

"And when you've cleared all the lines you run?"

Middie frowned, only looking up from her game momentarily. "No. You can't run in this game. Why would you?"

"Like on the battlefield. Once the enemy mobile suits are lined up, you can blow up one and the others will get caught up in the explosion and blow up as well. Once that happens you've breached their lines and can make your escape."

"Ugh. That's depressing."

"I think it's more depressing that those blocks just keep on coming and you can never run away from them."

"You can put the game _down_," Middie said, and could only just stop herself from ending the sentence with 'moron'. Wasn't that the most obvious thing in the world? "Duh."

"You can put your gun down and let yourself be blown up," No-Name retorted. "That doesn't mean anything."

The 'victory' tune started to beep from the tiny console, and Middie let out a breath of relief despite No-Name's tone of voice.

"Well, after a while the game ends," she said, and showed him. "You won't have to keep playing the same level forever. Once you win you move to the next level. That one's harder, so you have to keep getting better to keep winning."

He looked at the small screen being shoved in his face, a little cross-eyed and not seeming too impressed. "Huh."

_Everyone's a sceptic,_ Middie thought. "Wanna try?"

"I thought you didn't like me."

"Well _fine_, you don't get to try," she huffed, and sat on the crate backwards to resume her game.

But before she knew what was happening, No-Name had grabbed the game from her hands. Middie ended up bent over his shoulder, watching, giving clues and warnings, and laughing just a bit whenever he got a 'GAME OVER'.

**I-oOo-I**

"Captain, stop the car!" No-Name said urgently.

He immediately slammed the breaks. Tires squealed, the truck rocked beneath them, the lucky dice in the window swung wildly. In a moment, angry horns sounded from behind them. Well, that was a relief. If they'd caused a collision with a civilian vehicle by stopping so abruptly, the massive mobile suit carrier they were in wouldn't even have quivered to let them know. He looked over to No-Name and Middie, who were pressed against the window of the door on the opposite side of the truck, pointing and whispering to each other.

The captain watched the spectacle in bewilderment. Scanning the street himself yielded no explanation for why his young charge had made him stop in the middle of a busy road. "Where's the fire?"

No-Name turned his head toward him, but never stopped pointing. "I need some money." He turned to Middie. "How much was it?"

The girl bit her lip thoughtfully. "I dunno. It was a gift."

"Did you break something?" the captain asked No-Name.

"No. Your wallet, sir?"

He fished his wallet from his back pocket and handed it to the boy. He had known the kid longer than today. Surely he had a good reason for this. No-Name pulled out some bills, handed the wallet back to him, and clambered over Middie's legs to exit the car.

The captain watched No-Name run back along the pavement and disappear into what looked, from the tiny image in the mirror, to be a toy store. With his eyebrows near his hair line, he turned to the girl. "What's going on?"

Middie pouted. "I let him play Tetris and then he didn't want to stop. So I threatened that if he didn't give me my game back and got his own, I'd kiss him."

It took a long moment for that to sink in with the man. He stared at the open car door No-Name had disappeared through, then at the surly, red-faced girl. Not until he found himself laughing did he understand. Middie crossed her arms over her chest and looked away stubbornly, but he gave her a playful pat on the head and sat back comfortably in his seat, letting the cars behind him honk to their heart's content.

_Ah, the cooties phase,_ he thought with a sigh. _Next thing you know they'll be sweethearts. They're growing up so fast._

He inwardly wiped tears of emotion from the one eye he had left, snickering all the while.

**II-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-I-oOo-I-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-II**

**PSAN:** Hope you liked it. ^_^


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